Ex-Dividend Stocks: Intel, Citigroup

These stocks go ex-dividend Thursday.

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Intel

The technology company reported on April 17 first-quarter earnings of $2.7 billion, or 53 cents a share, down from year-earlier earnings of $3.4 billion, or 64 cents.

"In the wake of Intel's (INTC-NR) recent acquisitions of Fulcrum and QLogic's (QLGC-NR) InfiniBand assets, the company announced last night the acquisition of Cray's (CRAY-NR) interconnect technology," Wunderlich Securities analysts wrote in an April 24 report. "We believe this reflects both strategic intellectual property acquisition combined with product aspirations as technology formerly relegated to external interconnects makes its way into silicon. We further believe Silicon Graphics' (SGI) own technology portfolio, consisting of more than 600 patents mostly around shared memory architectures, may prove tempting as a means to further bulk up the Intel IP portfolio or defend against it. We reiterate our Buy rating and $15 price target."

Forward Annual Dividend Yield: 3%

Southern

The energy company reported on April 25 first-quarter earnings of $368 million, or 42 cents a share, down from year-earlier earnings of $422 million, or 50 cents.

"Southern has already made substantial progress on its FY12 financing plans," Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts wrote in a report Monday. "Recall that management had outlined plans to support its capital investment program with $3,550 million of long-term security issuances - including funding of long-term debt maturities of $1,717 million - plus $400 million of common equity issuances. Through March 31, Southern has completed about 38% of its plan, having issued $1,400 million of long-term debt and about $115 million of common stock."